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Recently, a special meeting on the expansion of the Technical Committee of the Engineering Research Center for High-purity Chemical Preparation Technology of Integrated Circuits of the Ministry of Education was held at Beijing University of Chemical Technology. Twelve academicians, including Xue Qunji, Cao Xianghong, Shu Xingtian, Wu Weizu, Tan Tianwei, Chen Fen 'er, Sun Lili, Yang Weimin, Ying Hanjie, Zhang Liqun, Gao Houqiang and Lyu Jian, attended the meeting together. What topic made them jointly "check in" at this small forum with only a few dozen participants? Li Qunsheng, director of the Engineering Research Center for High-purity Chemical Preparation Technology of Integrated Circuits of the Ministry of Education (hereinafter referred to as the Engineering Center) and a professor at Beijing University of Chemical Technology, revealed the answer: high-purity chemicals.

High-purity chemicals - the main battlefield you can't afford to lose

High-purity chemicals are essential key basic raw materials for the development of multiple high-precision and cutting-edge fields such as electronic information and aerospace. They are also important products involved in increasingly fierce international trade disputes. The purity of chemical products has a significant impact on their performance and applications. "This is a main battlefield where we cannot afford to lose." " When interviewed by reporters, Li Qunsheng said, "Without high-purity chemicals, there would be no high-end integrated circuits, and at the same time, the development of many high-precision and cutting-edge technology fields would lack a foundation."

It is reported that many high-end application fields have extremely high requirements for the purity of chemicals, with impurity content being only about one part per million of that of ordinary chemicals, making purification extremely difficult. China has long lagged behind developed countries in the field of high-purity chemicals, and the development of related industries has been severely restricted. Moreover, it has often been "exploited" by developed countries. In 2008, we had to export crude silicon at about 10,000 yuan per ton and import high-purity silicon at about 3.5 million yuan per ton. Li Qunsheng told the reporter that due to the inability to achieve industrial production of high-purity chemicals, Chinese enterprises can only endure such a huge price difference and be at the control of others.

According to Li Qunsheng, currently, China's demand for high-purity chemicals, especially electronic chemicals, is growing at an annual rate of over 10%. Some high-end electronic chemicals such as high-purity silicon, photoresist, and ultra-clean high-purity reagents are subject to the control of others, with an import dependence rate of over 90%. At present, China's chemical exports are still dominated by bulk chemicals, which have a significant price gap compared with imported high-end chemicals, imposing certain constraints on the development of the existing chemical industry. Li Qunsheng said that breaking through the difficulties in the research and application of high-purity chemicals can not only meet the major demands of the country, but also bring huge economic benefits to related industries.

The academicians attending the meeting unanimously recognized the significance of high-purity chemicals and, despite their busy schedules, participated in the discussion and served as "industry mentors". Academician Gao Houqiang from Lanzhou Petrochemical Company of China National Petroleum Corporation said: "Compared with the petroleum industry that wins by 'quantity', high-purity chemicals win by 'quality', which forms a sharp contrast."

Academician Xue Qunji illustrated the significance of high-purity chemicals with a case. A few years ago, after Japan imposed an embargo on South Korea regarding hydrogen fluoride and several chemicals used in packaging materials, South Korea lost over 30 billion US dollars in a year. He said that although the output value of these several chemicals was not high, their influence was significant.

Academician Tan Tianwei, the president of Beijing University of Chemical Technology, pointed out that currently, the competition in science and technology has reached a "white-hot" level. High-end chemicals and high-purity chemicals are a very important part, and they have also posed new challenges to the development of the chemical industry in terms of production technology, separation technology and application technology. Meanwhile, high-purity chemicals involve interdisciplinary fields. For instance, the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has put forward higher requirements for high-purity chemicals. He emphasized that the development of high-purity chemicals has become an important aspect of enhancing China's core competitiveness.

Separation and purification technology - the commanding heights already captured

How is the progress of industrial production technology for high-purity chemicals in our country at present?

At present, in the field of high-purity chemicals, we are only partially leading. It has not yet reached the level of taking the lead comprehensively. Academician Xue Qunji said, "We are not bad in the field of raw materials. We hope that through joint efforts, we can achieve a leap from following, keeping pace with to leading."

At the meeting, the two keynote speeches delivered by Academician Chen Fen 'er and Professor Li Qunsheng received much attention and praise. Academician Chen Fen 'er introduced how to achieve the 10-step asymmetric synthesis of cyproterone acetate by applying innovative strategies of flow chemistry and chemical biocatalysis, and presented a microchannel reaction device with an annual production capacity of 5 tons but occupying a very small area. Professor Li Qunsheng introduced key distillation technologies such as FGVT trays and BH type packing, and shared industrial examples of manufacturing high-end electronic chemicals with high purity, including silane, hydrofluoric acid, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF). Regarding their achievements, Academician Gao Houqiang said that Academician Chen Fen 'er "moved the factory to the laboratory", while Professor Li Qunsheng wrote the paper on the land of the motherland.

Separation and purification are key steps in the preparation of high-purity chemicals, and China has long been unable to make breakthroughs in this field. For decades, Li Qunsheng has led his team to carry out a large amount of scientific research and industrialization work, solving a series of "bottleneck" problems. Eventually, they have formed key technologies for the distillation of high-purity chemicals and other separation coupling, achieving the preparation and industrialization of various high-purity chemicals. Moreover, in terms of product quality, cost and energy consumption, they are superior to similar international advanced technologies.

Nowadays, our technology has taken the commanding heights. Professor Li Qunsheng told the reporter that they have built a 3,000-ton-per-year high-purity silicon plant with a purity of 99.99999999% (10N grade), breaking the foreign monopoly. A new generation of silicon-based material, silane production technology, has been developed. The product price has reached 15 million yuan per ton, with a domestic market share of 55%, ending the previous situation where the price was as high as 30 million yuan per ton and there was a heavy reliance on imports... At present, the technological achievements have been successfully applied in 22 enterprises. After being appraised by many academicians and experts, the core technology of this achievement is "at the international leading level".

Professor Li Qunsheng has developed a variety of coupled separation and purification technologies from distillation technology and created multiple different equipment to solve technical application problems, significantly enhancing the purity of chemicals. This is a typical chemical engineering thinking concept." Academician Ying Hanjie said that many people approach things with a chemical mindset and seldom consider equipment matching. Although small systems can succeed, it is very difficult to scale them up.

Academician Ying Hanjie emphasized that the development of equipment technology is of great significance for the preparation of high-purity chemicals. Some electronic chemical enterprises actually possess a lot of technologies, but they have never been able to apply them precisely because their equipment is not up to par. He gave an example, saying that for some coating technologies imported from Japan, if the equipment is not up to par, it will be very difficult to achieve uniform mass production.

The future development path - a circle of cooperation awaiting maturity

Regarding the future development path of high-purity chemicals in China, the academicians attending the meeting expressed their opinions freely by taking the engineering center as an example, and proposed to build a mature cooperation circle from research and development innovation to technology promotion and then to industrial application.

The first is to integrate R&D forces and promote an intensive layout. Academician Xue Qunji believes that the research and development forces of high-end chemicals should not be overly dispersed. If every unit is involved, the dispersion of forces and financial input will affect the output speed and quality. He suggested that through the efforts of departments such as the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Science and Technology, a relatively concentrated research and development layout be formed.

Second, implement collaborative innovation and promote systematic integration. Many academicians believe that interdisciplinary integration should be strengthened and suggest that Beijing University of Chemical Technology will organize multiple disciplines together to propose solutions based on the actual needs of enterprises. For instance, the chemical engineering major can collaborate with the mechanical engineering major to solve equipment problems.

Academician Ying Hanjie expressed the hope that the engineering center would expand its reach and collaborate with the equipment and anti-corrosion fields to achieve the localization of more electronic chemicals. Academician Lu Jian also believes that it is necessary to combine the advantages of multiple disciplines and integrate science and technology with equipment to form a technical system.

Academician Shu Xingtian proposed that the research and development work could be extended upstream and downstream to deeply integrate separation and purification with reactions. For instance, the combination of Professor Li Qunsheng's work and that of Academician Chen Fen 'er may produce an effect greater than the sum of its parts.

Third, we should do a good job in innovation demonstration and promote platform-based promotion. Academician Shu Xingtian believes that while doing a good job in demonstrating and promoting technologies and equipment in the field of high-purity chemicals, they can also be promoted to the field of bulk chemicals. This way, the contribution to the country will be greater. He said that Professor Li Qunsheng's innovative ideas for developing high-purity chemicals have brought great inspiration to technological innovation in other fields such as bulk chemicals. "Here, as long as it reaches 99.9%, it is considered a high-quality product." " He indicated that he had collaborated with Professor Li Qunsheng on the separation of propylene oxide.

Fourth, enhance enterprise cooperation and promote industrial application. "Strengthening cooperation with manufacturing enterprises, developing solutions throughout the entire process, and providing strong technical support for enterprises to produce high-purity chemicals" was a point that the academicians emphasized particularly at this meeting.

Many academicians have also paid attention to the development of the engineering center. Academician Lu Jian suggested that first, we should highlight our characteristics and focus on landmark achievements; Second, we must do a good job in positioning and distill scientific and technological issues.

It's very touching that our scholars have developed first-class technology and first-class products on such a non-national platform. Academician Gao Houqiang believes that compared with the remarkable achievements made, the engineering center platform needs to be upgraded and suggests striving to be elevated from the ministerial level to the national level. He hopes that the Engineering Center can accurately identify its direction, raise its positioning, overcome more core technologies, and make more contributions to the development of high-purity chemicals in our country.